Albanian sworn virgins

The Albanian sworn virgins, also called burrnesha, are Albanian women who take vows of chastity and wear men's clothing in order to live as men in patriarchal Albanian society. By 2009, there were only 109 sworn virgins left in the world. The medieval kanun code, which regulated Albanian life from the 15th to 20th centuries, required for every family to have a male member. Because of diseases and the deaths of males, females in the families would assume the role of male.